(ThySistas.com) Parenting is something I don’t see getting easier, as society continues to become an even more dangerous place. In addition to the normal parenting concerns, Black parents in America must prepare their children to live and thrive in a country that historically to present doesn’t value them. With that being said, Black parents are looking for better ways to raise their children. The older generations are being indicted as if nothing they did worked, and everyone has been traumatized. More of us are in school, and more of us navigate comfortably enough outside our initial community. For some this is a come up, but one can argue it might be causing us to prepare our children for the society they deserve, but not the reality of what they are living in.
One day I was perusing on social media, and I came across a post about a six year old child being put in handcuffs by the police. I didn’t have to think twice about the race of the child…I already knew. The child was temporarily detained for being a kid. The child wasn’t doing anything a six year old wouldn’t do. It was upsetting and eye opening all at the same time. I am a mother two black boys, and all I could see was my children in that moment. There are absolutely too many distractions that we adults have that are not a necessity. One can’t speak to gently parenting if the focus is not on the child; one can’t speak to authoritative parenting if the focus is not on the child. Seriously, there might be too much outside conversation, and maybe we need to put the cellphone down because our kids need to be trained.
Training, reinforcement, and discipline take time and lots of effort. Some parents are throwing in the towel on 10yrs olds, but they didn’t begin really laying groundwork for that child until they were five or six. We can’t discuss consequences, chastisement, nor punishment when a child hasn’t been trained. It is unreasonable for us as adults to expect full comprehension, stellar academics, and behavior that results from consistency & discipline when there has been no training. I will continue to say, we cannot expect children to master and do what adults cannot. Basically, if you have to be trained to be competent at your job, what makes you think the child doesn’t have to be trained for life. The Bible literally instructs us to “train up a child”. Too many of us are pacifying and negotiating with children; I’m not talking about teenagers…I mean negotiating with a four year old that is still leaning all of their bodily functions. Children must be trained on how to behave, take care of self, respect self and others, respect authority, and how to eat healthy foods…just to name a few things. All of these things require something of the parents and their village.
Seeking advice and professional counsel of doing what’s best for your child is never a bad idea but remember as a parent you know that child best…or at least you should. Too many of us are tuned into our phone, the madness in the world and work, and we are missing the opportunity to know our children…hence why training them can become difficult. Furthermore, maybe we are not starting soon enough. I remember once sharing that I began training my children the day they were born. I didn’t day discipline from birth, but training…absolutely. My boys were the most angelic beings to me when they were born, and they still are, however when pregnant with them I was literally mentally preparing to pour into them. No, they didn’t run the house. I felt it was important for them to be born into order as best as possible. To this day my phone is set to “do not disturb” at a certain point in the evening, because that is their time. Training can be teaching them what to and how verbally, and through application.
We are all learning and navigating the journey of parenthood as best we can [no judgment] but being Black in this country means we do not have the same amount of time, and our kids don’t have the same amount of grace nor space to be kids and make mistakes. We must prepare them with a sense of urgency like their life depends on it…because it does. Our children’s ability to survive and thrive starts with our ability to pour in love, train them, and place them in an environment with a village that will reinforce said training. Together we can save our children and community…but it required that we train our children on par with how much we love them.
Staff Writer; Christian Starr
May connect with this sister over at Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/christian.pierre.9809 and also Twitter; http://twitter.com/MrzZeta.